Welcome to the Road To Significance

Everywhere I turn, whether it is the television, the newspaper, the internet or a conversation, everyone is trying desperately to make sense of the current market meltdown.  As Wall Street unravels and the very core belief that success is at the center of our society begins to breakdown, I am taken back by the void that is being left in so many people’s lives.

Men and women, who just two or three months ago, seemed to have full control over their lives and a sense of dominance in regards to the world around them, have now been reduced to a bundle of fear and anxiety with no sense of stability or security.  Success, which had become not just their foundation, but their pedestal  and their stage, has quickly become their prison cell, their shackles, their ball and chain.

Back in 1995, the early stages of the economic boom that has, for the most part, remained in place until 2008, a man by the name of Bob Buford challenged me to reevaluate my life.  He asked a question that demanded far more than just an answer, it demanded an action:  “Is the rest of your life going to be about success or significance?”

You see at that time, I was a young man with tremendous early success in the business world.  Although compared to today’s wealth I may have seemed like a pauper, I was a 31 year-old married man who owned three different businesses, money in the bank and a future that seemed to have no boundaries.  Monetary success almost seemed like a given as long as I kept focused on the prize.  So when I was asked whether my life was about success or significance, my answer was both.  As far as I knew, success was significance.  The more money I made, the more significant I would become.  Success equaled money; Money equaled influence; Influence equaled significance; Significance equaled power.

Bob was very quick to set the record straight.  According to Bob, success was utilizing all of your God-given talents, gifts and treasures to build your own kingdom.  Success focused on the bigger house, the bigger bank account, the bigger title at your job and the bigger position in society.  It was all about serving you.  Significance, on the other hand, was taking the same God-given talents, gifts and treasures and focusing them on serving others well.  To building up the kingdom of others; to serving your neighbor, your community, your country, the world.  A significant life was a life of service, not a life of success.

As I look back over the past 13 years and I see the chaos today’s market place is causing, I can’t help but wonder what the world would look like right now if our society had been focused on significance rather than success.

First of all, would the collapse of the market place have even happened if the executives on Wall Street were not solely focused on success and returns that led to greed and over-exposure, but rather they focused on how their firm may play a significant role in serving not just their clients’ financial needs,  but the well being of their investors as well as the companies and organizations in which they invested their capital.   Imagine what Wall Street might look like today if CitiBank, or Goldman, or even Lehman Brothers had focused on building other people’s kingdoms as opposed to building the kingdom of Lehman Brothers, for example.

Now don’t get me wrong, we cannot only look to the leaders of the Wall Street firms and banks and blame them for this unraveling. We need to look at our own lives and our own decisions.  Our need to check the boxes of success that define us as a people:  The bigger house, the faster car, the expensive dinner, the private plane or the extravagant array of clothing.  We all got caught in the trap of success.  Let’s face it, success is just an illusion, because no matter how big you build your kingdom, there is always another addition you want to add on.

So here we sit, 13 years after I was first challenged to live a life of success or significance.  I have made some adjustments but still find myself straddling the abyss.  I conjure up an image of myself with one foot in the boat of success and one in the boat of significance and the current is forcing the boats to drift about.  It is time for me to decide which boat I am in, which boat will be my Life Boat if you will.

I have always wanted to say my life was about significance, but the fact is I really wanted to be in the boat of success doing significant things.  I think 2008 has made me realize that if we choose the boat of success as our vehicle to significance, in the end, we are really forced to prioritize our own kingdom because that is, after all, what keeps us afloat.  Therefore, when the rough waters come, like they have over the past several months in the stock market and the economy, we begin to fear that our boat will sink and we will drown because the success we believed in was not enough to keep us alive.  Yet, if we have made our lifeboat one of significance and the storm rages, we find there are more opportunities to serve others than ever before.  Suddenly our boat does not become a sinking ship but rather a rescue boat for others who have been lost at sea. 

As so many people begin to go down with their boat of success, I want to have a place where we all begin a new journey, a journey in a new boat, a boat of significance.  So as the pundits spin this economic collapse and try to figure out how to get back to success, I believe we need to abandon ship and begin the journey to significance by getting into a new boat, a boat that serves others well and builds a kingdom for us all.

Over the past 13 years I have learned one thing.  If success is the lighthouse in your life, there will be little or no room for significance.  Success is all encompassing, a moving target, an imaginary destination.  However, if the lighthouse of your life is significance, there will always be plenty of room for success.  The journey of significance is not an end place but rather a life better lived because we serve and love one another well.

Welcome to The Road to Significance.